Marked for Dmitry Serebryakov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market5 Oct 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cherepovets is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market5 Oct 2026
Maxim Dedelev hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cherepovets can pretend not to have heard.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Dmitry Burkin was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match3 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Cherepovets do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Cherepovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oliver Thoreson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dmitry Burkin, and the manager let it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yegor Kostryukhin and Cherepovets agree another 1 years.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match3 Oct 2026
Point won or two lost for Cherepovets?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Zvezda? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cherepovets is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Oliver Thoreson was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Cherepovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikita Pichugin is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad21 Sep 2026
6 new faces, and Cherepovets are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Ilja Antsiferov asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market21 Sep 2026
3 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Cherepovets could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer from Avangard for Daniyal Gadjiev was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market7 Sep 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cherepovets they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market7 Sep 2026
Cherepovets spend $16.0K to raise the standard
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $16.0K has been paid because Sergey Konakov is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Thiago Henrique was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Cherepovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oliver Thoreson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Sergey Konakov
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match5 Sep 2026
It needed Anton Balashov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Torpedo Vladimir, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad7 Sep 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The terraces10 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 12 of the 23 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market10 Aug 2026
Irkutsk come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Cherepovets did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market10 Aug 2026
Kirill Kulkov has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cherepovets they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Dmitry Serebryakov has agreed terms with Metallurg for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Oliver Thoreson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match8 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market3 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dmitry Serebryakov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cherepovets the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad3 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market3 Aug 2026
Maxim Dedelev hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Cherepovets can pretend not to have heard.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Andrey Pyrkin and Cherepovets agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Ilja Antsiferov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match1 Aug 2026
Irkutsk made Cherepovets work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Elnur Khalygov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of David Berezov
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match1 Aug 2026
Cherepovets settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Irkutsk spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.